


The awkward moment when Dan is left behind....again

by Pale_Blue



Category: Bastille (Band)
Genre: Completely ignores geograhy and how public transport works, Dan is left behind, Touring, UK arena tour, because I'm lazy, home alone-ish i guess, slightly?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-12 11:11:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 4,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13546146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pale_Blue/pseuds/Pale_Blue
Summary: “Does this mean…” Woody began. Then he stopped and looked at both of them.“Does this mean we forgot Dan again?”





	1. And So It Began...

 

The first time the band accidentally left Dan behind it was more scary than funny.

Nobody knew how exactly they managed to leave an entire human being behind, especially one that talked as much as Dan did, but they managed it. And they had only noticed when Woody asked if anyone had seen Dan, a slightly alarmed expression on his face. This had been mirrored by the almost comedic horror that had filled Dick’s face when he realised that yes, he had managed to leave the singer of the band whose tour he was managing in France, while they were all happily careering along a German motorway. And yes, he was probably never going to hear the end of it.

They had had to drive back to the hotel they’d been staying in and sure enough there was Dan, sitting outside with sunglasses, a confused expression and a very obvious hangover from the night before. He hadn’t even realised they’d all left and had been under the impression everyone else on their entire band and crew was around three hours late.

And for the rest of the tour it became a running joke for a member of the band to do a completely over the top roll call before leaving anywhere.

* * *

  _Present Day_

Bastille's tour bus was roaring down a motorway in England, heading to the next gig on the UK tour and despite the fact they’d been on the road for just under a week, everyone had re-acquainted themselves with their favourite on-tour pastimes. Will was sketching at the small table in the communal area of the bus with his headphones in, Woody and Kyle were midway through an intense round of FIFA and Dick was taking a nap on the sofa. It was comfortable and quiet, apart from the occasional exclamation from Woody or Kyle. Everyone was relaxed. The weak English sun was casting a dull glow on the leather coaches and glinting off the plastic water bottles that always inevitably ended up everywhere. All was well.

Until Will suddenly removed his headphones and asked the question which would set the whole drama into motion.

“Has anyone seen Dan? Just realised I forgot to give him his charger back.”

He looked around for some sort of answer from someone before his face dropped.

“Has anyone seen Dan... since we left?" He asked again, this time more quietly.

Kyle immediately got up and started checking the bunks, as if to make sure Dan hadn’t hidden himself away in one of them, while Woody pulled his phone out and stared scrolling though his contacts. When he reached Dan's number he immediately called him while Will stared at him, desperately wanting Dan to pick up.

“He’s not in the bunks” Kyle burst back in, slightly out of breath. Will made a shushing gesture and pointed to Woody, who was staring up at the ceiling and biting his lip. All eyes were on the phone, until Woody sighed and threw it down in front of him.

“Voicemail”, he said, before turning to Kyle with a confused expression on his face.

“Weren’t you with him last night?” He asked.

Kyle gave him an incredulous look. “Oh yeah, throw it all on me. I thought he went back to the bus with you.”

They both turned to Will, who suddenly looked very guilty.

“He umm……”, he murmured.

Kyle shifted forward slightly, wearing a look worn only by those who knew exactly what they were going to hear and that they weren’t going to like it.

“Go on,” He prompted.

Will looked out of the window and avoided the gazes of his bandmates.

“He told me he had left one of his sweaters in the backstage area and…..that he was going back for it”

“When?!” Woody half shouted.

Will concentrated very hard on the trees beside the motorway.

“Just before we left?” The silence which followed his words was filled with both embarrassment and realisation. Woody stared down at his trainers while Kyle seemed to be frozen into his current position by Will’s admission.

“Does this mean…”, Woody began.

Then he stopped, sighed and looked at both of them.

“Does this mean we forgot Dan again?”


	2. Kyle gets serious Home Alone vibes

Explaining the predicament in which they found themselves to Dick was incredibly humiliating. Kyle was reminded of being in primary school and having to confess to a teacher that he and his friends had somehow managed to break a neighbour’s greenhouse with a stray football. That had been an accident though. And nobody stays mad at a bunch of seven-year olds for too long. Of course, this was an accident too. But they didn’t have the benefit of being seven. Or of it being some sort of understandable mishap. No. They had managed to leave Dan, a whole entire human being, in London. And it wasn’t even the first time.

Kyle was getting serious Home Alone vibes.

Dick was furious, to say the least.

“What do you mean he’s not here?!” He exclaimed, pulling his phone out of his pocket as he spoke, ready to call Dan, or possibly their label to explain why he was never working with them ever again.

Woody, eyes still firmly on his own phone as he sent his fifteenth text to Dan telling him they were all really, really sorry and could he please answer his phone already because it was getting weird, sighed loudly. “We’ve already tried to phone him, and he hasn’t picked up once”, he said, not making eye contact with any of them and jiggling his leg impatiently.

“Why did nobody check he was there before we set off?!” Dick asked, with an expression that clearly conveyed his furious confusion and the tone to match.

“I thought you were the Tour Manager here?” Woody grumbled back. Dick rolled his eyes at him and got up to tell the driver they were going to have to turn around to collect the absent singer.

Kyle pulled a sympathetic face at Woody and shrugged slightly. “Maybe we should start checking on him every five minutes from now on. Dan, that is,” he suggested. Woody slumped back on the sofa and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I just don’t get why it’s always Dan. Why can’t we forget someone else for once?” He asked nobody in particular.

“He’s gonna think we hate him or something and I honestly don’t blame him”, Kyle said, before shuffling back to sit next to the drummer and pulled out his phone to add his own texts to the hundreds Woody had already sent to Dan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should be able to get this out pretty quickly because I've actually planned it (Look at that, another first)


	3. Dan! You're not dead!

They had all been heading back to London for about an hour when Dan finally returned Woody’s calls. And Kyle only knew this because Woody started yelling around three seconds after picking up his phone and giving his usual gruff “Hello?”.

“Dan? Dan! You’re not dead!” He half-yelled, face breaking into a smile for the first time in an hour. Woody stood up and immediately started heading towards the back to the back of the bus, where Dick had retreated to after muttering something about needing a break from ‘all the complete and utter idiocy’. But then he suddenly stopped, halfway through telling Dan that they were coming back and just to stay put.

“Wait, you what???!” He exclaimed, the smile sliding off his face in a way that would have been funny in any other context.

Will and Kyle were both staring at him as Woody froze in the corridor of bunks. All they could here was muffled speech through the phone and the growing complete and utter confusion on Woody’s face was enough to let them both know it wasn’t exactly good news he was hearing. Kyle silently prayed that Dan hadn’t managed to somehow injure himself enough to end up in hospital.

“Dan, you are a fucking idiot. You know that?” The increased speed of the speech that came through the phone suggested that Dan was either being his usual self-deprecating self and agreeing or that he was heartily disagreeing and was vocalising a monologue about it.

“Right, I’m gonna tell Dick and then I’m going to call you back, alright. Please don’t go anywhere else or I will personally tie you to this bus for the rest of the tour” He hung up and turned to look at the others.

“Dick is definitely going to quit as a tour manager when he hears this,” he said through gritted teeth.


	4. Maybe we should cancel the gig?

As it turned out, Dan had been under the mistaken impression that their next gig was in Scotland and had taken a flight from the nearest airport to Glasgow. And he was currently in Glasgow. While they were all somewhere in the vague vicinity of London.

And they had a gig in Leeds that night.

Woody was right about one thing though. Dick promised he was ‘never managing another tour for you ever again’ and he couldn’t believe ‘that complete and utter fool’ had decided to take a trip to Glasgow. However, they still had to somehow get Dan to Leeds. And helpfully enough Dan had pointed out that they had all his luggage on the bus, he didn’t have a phone charger, was currently on 14% battery and he was getting a cold because he hadn’t had a coat with him. The next flight to London wasn’t for another two hours. And, as the cherry on top of the sundae of bad news, there were no flights to Leeds.

Kyle could feel the sheer annoyance and frustration pouring off Dick and he didn’t even blame him. The whole ridiculous situation was something only they could possibly manage.

Currently they had Dan on speaker as they all tried to collectively figure out some way to get him back to London, and then to Leeds in time for their gig.

“Maybe we should cancel the gig?” Kyle suggested tentatively, and was immediately shot down.

“You are not cancelling a gig over something this stupid,” Dick growled menacingly at him.

“We are not cancelling anything!” Dan shout-whispered down the phone.

“Shut up, you’re the one stuck in Scotland so you’re not allowed to have any say in this,” Kyle shot back, giving the phone an evil look.

“Well I wouldn’t be if you hadn’t driven off without me,” Dan whispered back as harshly as someone having to whisper to avoid attracting attention in an airport lounge could.

“He has a point,” Will mused quietly from his position as far away from Dick as possible.

“You’re the reason he was left behind?” Woody pointed out before crossing his arms and somehow managing to look remarkably like a sulky toddler.

“Shut up, all of you” Dick snapped, directing a glare that could kill at them all before returning his attention back to Dan. Or rather, the phone from which Dan’s disembodied voice was coming. “I’d suggest getting the flight back to London, Dan, and then meeting us in Leeds”

There was silence from Dan’s end and for a second Kyle was sure that Dan’s phone had given up and they were going to just have to hope for the best. But then suddenly he spoke again.

“Ok, that’s fine but I have no idea how I’m going to get there in time. And how am I getting to Leeds?!”

“Taxi?” Kyle offered, perhaps somewhat optimistically.

“Kyle… do I look like a millionaire to you?” Dan replied, making what he thought of the idea incredibly clear through his tone.

“Well, currently you just look remarkably like a phone” Kyle shot back.

Another silence.

“So you’re telling I’m going to have to explain to some taxi driver that I want him to drive me to Leeds.” Dan offered with a defeated tone.

“Sounds about right,” Dick replied, without a single trace of sarcasm.

“From London?” Dan asked.

“Well, unless you can think of something else then yes” Dick said.

“And then I pay him my entire life’s savings and do our gig at around one in the morning?” Dan asked incredulously. To be honest, Kyle thought, he had a point. It was going to be expensive. And Dan had already paid for a flight.

“No, you do the gig at the exact time planned,” Dick said very firmly, making it clear there was no room for arguments and they would do the gig. Or else.

“Dick, I legitimately cannot take a taxi from London to Leeds,” Dan protested, although it was pretty evident he was overruled. Dick shook his head in the general direction of the phone.

“Guess you should have thought about that before swanning off to Glasgow”


	5. Daniel, I'm hanging up

It took only a few minutes for Dan to accept he was going to have to take a taxi because there was simply no other way, whether he liked it or not.

“Right I think we should leave you to your waiting because you’re not going to have enough battery otherwise” Dick said, very sensibly. 

But, before he could hang up, Dan suddenly came across another very serious fear. 

“What exactly am I supposed to do for almost two hours in an airport when I can’t spend money because I owe some taxi driver my entire bank account and can’t use my phone because Will still has my charger?!” He asked, audibly very terrified of the prospect of several hours sat in an airport with nothing to do.

“Daniel, I’m hanging up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for being so nice about my attempts at humour, I'm gonna endeavour to get this finished as soon as humanly possible


	6. They were too old for this

Dan had promised to call or text or communicate in some fashion when he arrived back in London but as of yet none of them had heard anything. Although Kyle had been pointing at every plane in sight and saying that Dan was on it.

“He’s definitely on that one”, Kyle exclaimed confidently, wildly waving his arm in the general direction of the plane.

Dick stared hard at him before taking off his reading glasses and looking Kyle square in the eye. “Kyle, that one is heading in the opposite direction of London, and if Dan is indeed on that one, then that is very, very bad news” he said very slowly.

* * *

 

Somewhat later than planned, a weary ¾ of Bastille got off the bus at the venue in Leeds. The remainder of the journey had consisted primarily of more squabbling over whose fault it was (They eventually all agreed it was Dan, because he wasn’t present to defend himself) and whether or not they should just soundcheck without the singer (general consensus was that this was a very bad idea).

The backstage area was quickly filled with all their things, and their crew began setting up the stage. On this tour they had with them an insane amount of screens, lights and wire sculptures, which they could only hope would all be present and correct by the time Dan finally made an appearance.

Kyle was in the backstage area making himself his third cup of tea (‘for the stress’) when he heard the distant dulcet tones of Woody yelling for Dick. To which he responded by pouring his tea faster, spilling most of the hot water everywhere and running to find Woody holding a mug.

“Has he made it to London?” He demanded, slightly breathless from a mad dash through endless white-painted corridors, wanting to make sure his friend was at least somewhat closer to Leeds than he had been previously been. At this point he just wanted it to be over because the whole situation was somewhat more stressful than he had anticipated it being and he was now ready to just do the gig and pray no-one at their Label ever heard about the fact they had misplaced Dan not just once, but twice.

It was just an embarrassment. Plain and simple. They were too old for this.

Woody was too busy listening intently to what Dan was saying to answer so Kyle waited impatiently for him to hang up.

“Alright, see you in a bit mate” Woody said, finally hanging up and Kyle immediately almost pulled his arm off in his enthusiasm.

“Is he in London?!” He asked again, more insistently than he had thirty seconds earlier, before yanking even harder on Woody’s arm.

“Get off you maniac! Yes! He was just getting in the taxi when I left him,” Woody flung back, yanking his arm from Kyle’s deceptively strong grip.

“Thank God” Kyle replied with a long, dramatic exhale to add some panache to his relief.

Woody shook his head at him and headed out to the offices they had set up in the backstage area to tell Dick the wonderful news of Dan’s return to England. Kyle was left alone in the corridor with his tea, from which he took a very loud slurp before slowly wandering after Woody.


	7. It was going to be awful

It had been around four hours since Dan had confirmed his arrival in London. And Kyle had stopped being on edge enough to not be bored to just being very bored. There was very little to do in the backstage area of an arena. And they hadn’t been able to soundcheck because of Dan not being there.

He wandered through to the makeshift dining area which had been set up in one of the larger backstage rooms, contemplating whether to steal a bag of crisps or not. Woody was already, sitting in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs which were scattered around a series of long school cafeteria style tables. He had gone for a bag of crisps, which made Kyle feel guilt-free enough to also snag a bag from the table in the corner which contained only snacks and various cans of soft drinks. He then sat down next to the drummer, who was looking a little stressed. Ok, that was an understatement. Very stressed.

“You alright?”, he asked, unsure as to whether or not his friend’s mood was to do with Dan’s continued absence or something else.

“It’s only an hour until the gig starts. And he’s not here yet”, Woody said, somewhat more quietly than usual.

“He’ll be fine. He’s probably phoning up a bunch of banks to get loans for the taxi fare,” Kyle replied, trying to inject a little humour into the situation that even he could now see was beginning to look a little bleak.

“We can’t do the show without him. And it’s too late to cancel, there’s already people outside”

Woody was right. It was too late to cancel. But unless Dan showed up within the next few minutes it was going to be impossible to do a gig unless the crowds were up for instrumental versions of all their songs. Which Kyle had his doubts about, and he had a suspicious feeling their label might drop them if they explained a random instrumental gig had happened because Dan had still been in a taxi on his way to Leeds. They really couldn’t do a gig without the singer also being present.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, Woody worrying about Dan and Kyle considering whether or not temporarily quitting the band would get him out of having to do the gig.

“I’m going to phone him again,” Woody said suddenly, placing the crisps on the table in front of him and pulling his phone out of his pocket.

Kyle gave him a look halfway between hope and pity. “ I’m not sure his phone’ll still be working. He didn’t have a charger on him” he said.

“Gonna try anyway” Woody replied, before hitting the ‘call’ button and pressing the speaker icon. They both silently listened to the ringing.

“That means his phone still works right? If it’s ringing?” Kyle pondered out loud.

“Shut up Kyle”, Woody hissed, eyes fixed on the phone.

It was still ringing.

“Hi, this is Dan. I must have missed your call, so leave a message and I’ll call you back later if I remember”

Woody hung up and dropped his head into his hands.

“This is going to be awful” he said, and Kyle wasn’t sure if he was talking to him or to himself. However he couldn’t help silently agreeing.

It was going to be awful.

* * *

 

It was approximately twenty minutes until the band had to be on stage.

And Kyle was pretty sure Dick was about to have a heart attack because there was still no sign of a certain blue-eyed singer. They also still hadn’t told anyone outside of their little group either, which made it all so much worse because they were going to have to go for a hell of a lot of label meetings if the gig didn’t end up going ahead. Will and Woody had started arguing about who was going to have to do the honours and explain to a full arena why there was going to be an instrumental gig.

“Why can’t you do it, you’re the reason he got left behind in the first place” Woody shot at Will, glaring in a way that was at least half serious.

“Yeah, maybe, but I didn’t tell him to go to Glasgow?!” Will retorted.

“I have an idea”, Kyle suddenly butted in. “We call Dan on Skype and he can explain himself why he’s not there. Or maybe he can just sing over Skype, that could work maybe, I-“

“Kyle, be quiet!” Will and Woody whisper yelled back in unision.

“We should have just done a soundcheck without him” Dick said quietly from just behind Woody.

Kyle was now convinced Dick was going to quit after this gig.


	8. I hate all of you

They were all sitting together in one of the backstage rooms, trying to think of a way out of the problem. And, as of yet, no solutions had been found, although Kyle still wanted to get Dan to serenade the crowd over Skype despite the idea having been shot down numerous times.

There were now only ten minutes to go. And the tension in the room was so thick it was almost a physical weight on all of their shoulders. They were all impossibly aware of what had to happen but as of yet none of them had been willing to fully confront the situation. The whole thing was making Kyle more and more nervous, and he sat and twisted the hem of his T-shirt into a tight little knot. When he got bored of that he couldn’t distract himself anymore.

“I’m gonna take a short walk” he said quietly, pulling himself to his feet. Nobody said anything, which was a testament to how stressful the whole situation had become.

Kyle was scared now. Because it had only been funny when they had still had enough time to sort the whole dilemma. But now that they were out of time he just sort of wanted to cry if he was honest. Cry, then hide in his bunk on the tour bus until Dan eventually turned up. He walked slowly through the identical white painted hallways of the backstage area, listening sadly to the murmuring of the crowds that could be heard everywhere in the venue. They were in for such a disappointment. And so was Dan, he suddenly thought. Dan would never forgive himself. He’d be devastated and would probably manage to blame himself and only himself. Like he always did when gigs went wrong.

Kyle turned another corner, getting ever closer to the exit. But then his heart suddenly stopped and he froze.

Because there was Dan.

He was walking in a way that conveyed immense weariness, head down, hair a mess, clothes all wrinkled and he looked like he needed to sleep for about two days but to Kyle he had never looked more wonderful. Kyle sprinted towards him, arms and legs going everywhere but he couldn’t even bring himself to care because Dan was here. In Leeds. In the hallway. Not in Scotland. And the next thing Dan knew he was being embraced in a hug that made him feel like his ribs were slowly being pushed into his lungs.

“Kyle are you crying!?” He asked incredulously, trying to extract himself from the keyboard player’s iron grip. Kyle, as it turned out, was alarmingly strong.

“No,” came the muffled reply, before Kyle seemed to suddenly remember what exactly was going on and where they were. He hastily released Dan, to the singer’s obvious relief, before grabbing his wrist and pulling him towards where the others were, dashing an arm across his face to get rid of the tears of complete and utter relief.

“Come on, we have to be on stage in like five minutes,” He explained hastily while running full-pelt through the maze of corridors.

“What!?” Dan yelped back, trying to keep up in order to not lose his arm. “Kyle!” he yelled suddenly, “Stop! Just stop!”

Kyle halted and turned to see Dan looking at him with an expression of complete and utter bewilderment adorning his face. “Look, Kyle. I’ve taken two flights today, and the world’s longest taxi journey. And the driver was an embarrassingly huge fan of our music so I've listened to basically every song we’ve ever put out and to make it all worse, he didn’t recognise me. He kept asking me what I thought, what the fuck was I supposed to say!? And then I essentially had to pay him my soul and now I have to go on stage!?” Dan half-shouted, clearly somewhat frustrated at how his travelling experience had gone.

“Yes!” Kyle replied, completing ignoring everything Dan had said as he grabbed the singer’s arm, ignored Dan’s outraged squawks, and shoved him into the room where the other were sitting.

Everyone present reacted by staring at Dan with the sort of confusion usually directed only at extra-terrestrials. Then the room erupted into chaos. Woody jumped up and pulled Dan into a huge embrace, Dick gave him a stern look and a clap on the back before rushing off to alert the rest of the crew that the gig was going ahead after all, shouting back over his shoulder that they were on in less than five minutes. Meanwhile Will was staring at Dan like he wasn’t sure precisely if he was actually there or if he was just hallucinating.

“Right let’s go,” Kyle said, pulling Dan out of Woody’s arms and into a chair in front of a mirror and chucking a can of hairspray at him, which he barely caught.

“I hate all of you,” Dan murmured with very little menace before dousing his head in hairspray and attempting to get his hair to point in any direction other than straight up with very little success.

“Should have stayed in Scotland then,” Will quipped, resulting in Dan directing a large cloud of hairspray in his general direction.


	9. The end

The gig wasn’t exactly what anyone would refer to as a roaring success.

Dan, despite his best efforts, looked as though he had gotten out of bed five minutes before the gig and then electrocuted himself.

The lack of soundcheck meant that somehow nothing but Dan’s microphone had been turned up to the correct volume, which made for a slightly awkward acapella opening and Woody being a beat or two behind for the majority of ‘Send Them Off!’

And because they hadn’t prepared a set list they ended up having to play along with whatever Dan was singing.

During Flaws Dan also managed to get stuck in the crowd because Dick and the rest of the security hadn’t realised Dan was doing Flaws until he had already vanished into the screaming masses because there was no set list from which to take guidance.

But they did it. They gave some semblance of a performance, performed most of the songs they were supposed to and didn’t get booed off the stage. And nothing went irreparably wrong.

They were all in a room backstage afterwards when Kyle suddenly realised someone was missing. A Dan shaped someone. His stomach practically fell out of his feet and he turned to Will in a state of panic.

“Dan!? Where’s Dan!?” he almost shouted. Will just laughed and pulled him into the next room and opened the door.

And there, on the sofa, curled up with what looked to be around six hoodies, was Dan.

Fast asleep.

* * *

 

_Two weeks later_

The band were in the tour bus, late at night watching a crap film. They had all squashed into the living room area of the tour bus area and there was a comfortable silence broken only by the occasional smatter of laughter at the film.

Until, suddenly, Woody piped up from the floor beside the sofa. “Guys, where’s Dan?”

There was a moment of silence as everyone cast their eyes around wildly, looking for the singer.

And then they all collectively pretended to be very busy.

“Are you fucking kidding me!?” Dick yelled, jumping to his feet.

“Again!?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end yay! Thank you so much for reading, I had so much fun writing this and hopefully I'll be inspired to write something else very soon

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first attempt at something slightly humorous, which is pretty new territory for me. Also I've completely ignored the geography of England and Scotland because I'm horribly lazy, so apologies in advance


End file.
